I Didn't Ask For This
by Fanf1cFan
Summary: Shinji's POV. Fills some back story. I changed the title - used to be "As If Anyone Cared". Not sure where to take it from here. I don't want to just rehash the series. Suggestions?
1. As If Anyone Cared

I don't own the characters or Shin Seiki Evangelion. Hideki Anno and Gainax own everything.

A/N : Shinji's point of view. My imagination filling in some of the details in his life before the first episode in the series. Please review and tell me what needs improvement, or what, if anything, worked well. I'm trying to improve as a writer and I need feedback. Thanks.

----------------------------------------

Whenever people have bothered to tell me what they think, their appraisals of me were pretty much alike. Being introspective by nature (solitude tends to do that), I had already come to the same conclusions, just maybe using different words. They only served to reinforce what I already knew. I am shy, passive, and gloomy, at least compared to everyone else.

If there was ever someone that wanted to try to understand me, to have me tell them why I am the way I am, I'd have to start with the facts that my mother died when I was five, and my father might as well be dead for all the contact I've had with him since then.

I don't argue with anyone, not unless I'm provoked, even when I think I may be right. I don't like conflict. My mother's brother was the opposite; he loved a "good arguement". If a difference of opinion didn't exist, he would just take an opposing view and stir things up. His few friends were the same way. They would harangue each other for hours on some minor point. I think that he couldn't interact with anyone any other way. Maybe that was why he was divorced. To me, dealing with all that was more than uncomfortable, it was painful. For a while, when I first came to live with him, he tried to engage me in verbal sparring. But I was still pretty young and hadn't developed much self-confidence. I wouldn't take a stand against him. Few little kids confronted with a scary adult would. Maybe that was why he kept berating me, telling me I was a wimp, that I was too timid. I guess he was right. Self-confidence pretty much went away under that kind of battering. Why he took me in after mom died, I couldn't tell you.

Of course, when I was in grade school, it was like blood in the water for a shark. I soon got the attention of the school bully. Even some of the guys who were usually the bully's victims sensed a weaker person and passed their frustration and pain on to me. You know the saying. "Shit runs down-hill." It didn't help that I was kind of thin and weak-looking. And the bully usually made sure my humiliation was in front of some girls. He would put me down with some sort of ridicule that was concocted to sound clever. Most of the girls giggled at the bully's wit. If that kind of experience doesn't make someone screwed up, I don't know what will. Grade school was hell.

One day, when I was in the 6th grade, I came home to find all sorts of emergency vehicles blocking the street by my uncle's place. He didn't survive the heart attack.

After a week with a foster family, I was told that my father had arranged for me to live with one of my teachers. No illusions on my part that the guy wanted my company. He was being paid for his inconvenience. On the up side, as long as I behaved and did my school work, I was pretty much left alone. Another improvement in my situation happened when my uncle's attic was explored. Someone found my mom's old cello, which ended up in my possession, along with her SDAT and a bunch of tapes that were in the case. These were the only things ever given to me that told me anything about her; no pictures, no letters, nothing else. Nothing from my father.

I think my early efforts to play the cello without lessons prompted my guardian to arrange for instruction pretty soon after that. While I had the difficulties that I was assured were common to all beginners, I found that I could temporarily escape into the concentration that learning to play well demanded. I know that I'm not particularly talented (my music teacher would remind me from time to time), but I did improve to the point where animals and people didn't immediately try to flee from the sounds I produced. Listening to some of my mom's classical music tapes helped me understand what I should aim for when playing, and how far I was from getting there. Even so, my need to escape meant that I practiced a lot.

Another saying you've maybe heard is "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I suppose it might apply a little even in my case. I was forced to learn to fade into the scenery, to become invisible, to avoid attention. The frequent attacks on my almost non-existant ego taught me how to grow the kind of calluses that protected me from feeling very much. And the occasional bully's physical attacks eventually taught me to endure pain without giving any sign that I felt it. Absorb it, endure it, hide it. By the time I was part way through middle school, I'd learned to survive, to become tougher in the way that iron becomes tougher when a blacksmith pounds on it. This robbed my enemies of satisfaction, while giving me just a little. I'll take what I can get.

Don't get the wrong idea. I still have feelings, emotions. In particular, I feel a lot of sympathy for others who are attacked without asking for it. I feel anger at anyone who inflicts pain on another, especially without provocation. I feel inadequate, powerless to do anything about it. And I feel very alone. Life mostly sucks.

Would I have turned out differently if my mom hadn't died when I was five, if my father hadn't arranged for me to live away from him? I don't know. Maybe. But there's no point to playing "what if".


	2. The Letter

I don't own the characters or Shin Seiki Evangelion. Hideki Anno and Gainax own everything.

The Letter

When I got home from school today, there was a letter waiting for me. That, alone, was really unusual. I don't get letters from anyone. At first it looked like the fake "official" mailings some companies use to market their products, a "come-on" aimed at the easily fooled. Junk mail, in other words. But this one was addressed to Ikari Shinji, not "Occupant", or some such. The return address was for a company or organization I never heard of, "NERV". Since I had no pressing social engagements (never have, never will), or any thing other than homework to do, I opened it to see what NERV wanted me to buy (as if).

The message was on company letterhead that looked like it was on better quality paper than the usual advertisement (what's with this "God's in His heaven, All's right with the world" motto?). There were no glossy brochures, just the one-page letter . . . . and a rail pass! Then my eyes drifted to the signature line. It's hard to describe the rush of emotions and sensations that hit me at that instant. Anger was definitely there. Also shock, confusion, light-headedness, some un-asked-for memories rising from a place and time I didn't want to visit again . I blindly reached behind me to find a chair. If I hadn't been able to sit down right then, I would have ended up sitting on the floor. It was signed "Ikari Gendo".

It was a while before I could get myself together enough to look at the letter again. After reading it through several times, I still hadn't absorbed the meaning very well. I guess my brain had gone out for a short walk. When it came back, the fact that the letter was from my father finally sunk in. He was asking me to come visit him. Well, that's not entirely accurate. The way it was worded was much colder than that. It was more like the kind of order a superior gives to a subordinate, not to a son, not to a friend even. There were directions on what trains to catch and when, what station to get off at, and the instruction to wait at the destination station to be picked up by NERV personnel. It also mentioned that the letter would act as a temporary security pass once I got there. This was supposed to happen in two weeks time.

My first reaction was to go ahead and treat it like junk mail. No answer, just drop it in the 'round file'. Even after most of the shock and wooziness wore off, there was a lot of anger and confusion left over. I thought of writing back just to tell him how I felt about a father who abandons his son. I wanted to choose the wording to inflict as much pain and embarrassment as possible.

It was at about that time that my guardian came home. Usually he just says the expected polite things, a minimum of disinterested conversation, and then goes about correcting tests, or whatever a teacher does when he goes home. This time, I must have looked a lot different than usual. When he asked if there was something wrong, I just handed him the letter. His eyebrows went up as he read it, and when he finished he asked me what I wanted to do about it. He didn't seem as surprised as I expected. It occurred to me that he may have been having correspondence with my father that I knew nothing about.

I didn't answer his question right away. This whole thing was weird enough that I finally decided to think about it some more. Maybe I would want to go and tell my father, right to his face, what I thought of him . . . in front of whoever was around at the time . . . the more people the better. I think what I told my guardian was "I don't know yet".

The next day another envelope looking much like the other one showed up in the mail. Yep, addressed to me, return address to NERV. What now?

When I opened it, a photograph fell out. Not just any photograph, but one that probably shouldn't be sent to a fourteen-year-old boy . . . not that I was complaining. A very hot looking young woman (a BABE!!!) in a fairly skimpy shorts-and-sleeveless-top outfit was posed on her hands and knees showing a 1000 watt smile and enough cleavage to make my nose bleed! Even a "look here" note with an arrow unnecessarily pointing to some impressive assets. She looked like she was in her twenties, but I couldn't guess closer . . . not enough exposure to 20-something HOT BABES. What was this all about?!

Eventually I tore my eyes away from the front of the photo and looked at the back. There was a hand written note saying she would pick me up at the train station, and signed "Capt. Katsuragi Misato". If this was a representative sample of NERV personnel, I think I could get to like it there!

Ah, who am I kidding, I can't even get any friendly attention from the girls in my school, let alone anyone that looks like Misato. And what's with that Captain title? She's the skipper on a ship? Or maybe she's military! This is getting weirder and weirder. And what kind of company is NERV? I've never head of it. What does it make? What does it do?

Now I had three very different reasons to take that train ride. I could satisfy my curiosity, I could meet Misato (heh!), and I would have a chance to tell my father what I thought of him. Would I even have enough nerve to chew him out? I'd have to stay very angry in order to pull that off. I sure didn't think he had a joyful father-son reunion in mind. His letter looked like he had given a secretary the necessary information and left the details to her. It was done with a word processor; not a bit of handwriting in it. He (or his secretary) had even used a signature stamp. Hard to get much colder toward your son than that!

In the end, after a few nights with little sleep, I decided that if I didn't go and confront my father, I'd just continue to have sleepless nights and distracted days with my mind constantly telling me what I should have said to him. It would've been better if he'd never sent the letter . . . the first one, anyway. I don't think he knew about the second one, at least not the photograph.

I talked with my guardian about it, and since the "visit" would take place during the break between semesters, he didn't have any objections. My bet is it wouldn't have made any difference anyway. He wouldn't risk losing the regular checks from my father by opposing his wishes concerning me. Really, I had no reason not to go. It wasn't as if I'd miss anything by being away during the break. Even if I lost my nerve and didn't say anything to my father, if I came back 'with my tail between my legs', at least I would see him again. I might learn something about him, maybe even why he didn't want me in his life.

Shit! I'm so messed up!

A/N: When I uploaded the first part, I didn't really intend it to be more than a one-shot. Just a little character study and filling in some back-story. . . some speculation about Shinji's life from when he was abandoned by his father to just before he got that fateful letter. After a few days I found myself re-reading the first part and then writing a second chapter. More speculative back-story, more filing in the gaps with my imagination. Hope someone finds it interesting. There may or may not be another chapter. I'm not ready to commit to the retelling of the whole story in any case. There have already been a lot of good fics doing just that and I don't think I can top them, or even match them.

Oh, and thanks for the one nice review on the last upload. - Fanf1cFan, 12/14/07


End file.
